


The Ask and the Answer

by icarus_chained



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Courage, Desire, Fear, Friendship/Love, Hope, Introspection, Love Confessions, M/M, Pain, Realisation, Self-Discovery, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2098830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you trying to kill me, Spock? Is that what you really want?"</p>
<p>Spock had never considered what he wanted from the doctor, until McCoy had asked him and suddenly he was faced with answering. In the aftermath of Sarpeidon, he struggles to understand his own response, and what it might mean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ask and the Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, once again, this is set in the aftermath of "All Our Yesterdays". Um. It's a great episode for these two? Hinted and/or vague references to other episodes as well. And to warn in advance, this is purely Spock struggling with his feelings, thorny as they are when it comes to McCoy, so have some Vulcan soul-searching and not much else? *grins sheepishly* My apologies.

"Are you trying to kill me, Spock? Is that what you really want?"

There was something about that question that remained with Spock, even days after they had left Sarpeidon behind them. An echo that did not degrade, that returned and needled him at the strangest moments. That was often the case with Doctor McCoy, perhaps. His words had barbs, and remained embedded long after the doctor himself had forgotten he'd said them. They struck and buried themselves, like thorns driven so deep that the flesh had healed itself around them, and only deeper for the fact that McCoy himself did not seem to realise their nature. He spoke without artifice or shield, and it gave his words an edge that stripped away all defence. Delivered in all innocence, his cruelty could be stunning.

It was not unusual, then, for his words to echo in Spock's mind. The doctor was immovable and unignorable, a defiant presence that had etched himself inside those around him. Spock began to think that should anyone examine his soul now, they would find McCoy buried immovably inside it, a thorn that had been healed across and cradled now by the flesh it had wounded. And surrounded, perhaps, not just by scars, but by the memories of grace. Memories of warmth and of joy, of protection and companionship. All these things the doctor was and more, buried deep inside his friends, to wound and to heal in equal measure.

Perhaps that was why that question had struck so much more deeply. Perhaps that mix of innocence and cruelty was why it echoed more loudly and more terribly than anything else the doctor had ever said.

Are you trying to kill me. Is that what you really want.

His hand had been around the doctor's throat. For some reason, in his memory, that was what demanded Spock's focus. That throat beneath his hand, that hummingbird rush of a terrified, defiant pulse, the grim determination in the doctor's eyes. That question, flung in the face of a strength the doctor could not hope to match. It was that image that caught him, that _held_ him. 

Because McCoy had been frightened. He had been afraid. He had aimed to defy Spock, to wake him up, to force him to remember himself, but throughout all of it he had been _afraid_. 

He had, perhaps, been asking that question in real and deadly earnest. He had been afraid that Spock would kill him. He had dared him anyway.

The pain they caused each other was not all one way. Spock knew that. There were moments, not all of which he understood, when he caught a glimmer of something shocked and wounded in the doctor's eyes. When Spock struck, when he fought back, and something crumpled in other man beneath his words. Moments of fear, moments of pain, when the doctor _fought back_ , when he settled into grimness and determination and the expectation of pain. 

Not all because of Spock, Spock thought. Perhaps not even most. He had seen that answer of McCoy's before, had seen him stand before violence and offer only that grim, furious determination to endure. It came from something older, a deeper scar than any wound Spock might have offered him. There was something infinitely fragile about McCoy, an expectation of weakness that led cruel hearts to try their luck against him, and the doctor had long since armed himself against them. He had a virulent, passionate contempt for willful cruelty, and a bitter fury inside him that answered it lash for lash. It struck at Spock, that fury. To see it, to know it, to understand its origin. It struck something from him, just to know it existed.

And worse, a thousand times, to see it pointed at himself. To see McCoy afraid, to see him defiant, to see him ready to endure violence at Spock's hands. It _wounded_ , to remember that. And moreso, so much more, to feel that perhaps it had been justified.

Had he wanted to kill him? Had he, just for that moment, wanted to wipe McCoy away, make it so that the man might never hurt him or threaten his happiness again? He had wanted Zarabeth, he knew that. He had wanted the joy and the simplicity of her, wanted that plain, simple happiness. A wasteland with no-one to judge them or interfere with them, and a beautiful woman that was his to hold and to cherish. A woman who loved him, who desired him, who rejoiced when he touched her. A woman who did not fear him. Had he been willing to kill McCoy to protect that, to protect her? Or even simply to protect himself, and the prospect of a happiness without pain that he had never before dreamed he might have?

Had he wanted to kill McCoy at all?

McCoy had thought he had. Not fully, not completely. There had been an odd thrum of trust in the pulse beneath his hand, a hope and a daring that had led McCoy to challenge him in the first place. McCoy had thought he might be drawn back, that words and the willingness to pay for them might wake Spock up and save them both. There had been a trust, underneath the defiance, a deep and true faith in Spock's nature and Spock's friendship. McCoy had believed that if he only gave Spock the chance to remember, then his life would be safe in Spock's hands.

But he had thought he would pay for it first. He had thought he would be hurt, had thought that Spock might _want_ him hurt, even dead, for all that he trusted Spock to remember himself before it came to pass. He had looked at Spock, and thought he should expect pain.

Spock didn't want that. McCoy's pain, McCoy's _expectation_ of pain. He did not want that. Perhaps that should have been an obvious thing, but he'd never thought of it so deeply before. He had never looked at the doctor and considered 'want'. There had been no time for it, no impetus. McCoy was there, McCoy was what he was, as immovably and unchangeably as Vulcan's desert sun, and in so eternal a presence there had never been thought of wanting. Until McCoy had asked him. Until that question. Is that what you really want?

And if it isn't, what _is_?

What did he want from McCoy? McCoy who wounded him, who protected him, who fought for him, who feared him. That thorn in his flesh that he had left embedded until he had healed himself around it. What was it about McCoy that he wanted, enough to remember himself and turn aside happiness for his sake?

And again, as he thought about it, it was his hand around the man's throat that he remembered. It was the pulse beneath his hand, so fierce and so afraid, the blind and desperate daring of the man. McCoy was so _fragile_. So infinitely small, so infinitely breakable, and yet so unendingly defiant. It drew a darkness from Spock in his weaker moments, one that frightened him. His darker, baser self, it was drawn to the courage he saw in McCoy. Like every cruel being who had struck the doctor in the past, there was a part of Spock that sang to see defiance wrung from him, that wanted McCoy to see all of Spock's strength and defy him anyway. Not McCoy's fear. Not McCoy's pain. But McCoy's _courage_. He wanted that. In the darkest, most savage depths of his vulcan heart, he wanted that.

But it was more than that, he thought. It was more than just the dichotomy of the man, that endlessly fascinating mix of fear and defiance, of weakness and strength, of innocence and cruelty. He did not want McCoy only to challenge him, didn't want only the thrust and parry of pain and warmth between them. He wanted ... he wanted something more. He knew that now.

He wanted what Zarabeth had meant to him. From McCoy, with McCoy. He wanted ... some fragment of what he had, for that briefest moment, thought he might be able to have with her.

He wanted to touch him. He had always wanted that. He had disguised it from himself, maybe, disguised it as the doctor's desire more than his, as McCoy's endless demand to touch and be touched, to ground himself and reassure himself with physical contact. Spock had seen that need, had understood it perhaps more than he would ever admit to himself or to the doctor either, and he had responded to it. He had allowed himself to touch, to rest his hands on McCoy's shoulders or wrap his arm around the man's waist, to steady and support the man, to stand alongside him and brush their arms together. For the doctor's sake, for McCoy's sake, but had he ever really believed only that? He had held the doctor's hands in his when McCoy was too unconscious to know it, had traced the doctor's cheek as he lay dying and felt something move inside himself that had nothing or next to nothing to do with the smile and attempted comfort he had received in answer to it. He had touched at every chance that was offered to him, and some part of him had delighted in it.

With McCoy, Spock had given and accepted touch as with no-one else, and maybe he had pretended it was for the doctor's sake but it wasn't. It hadn't ever been. It was for his, for the part of him that had watched his parents trail secret touches against each other's fingertips, watched them orbit each other and delight in each other and brush that delight gently across each other's skin. It was for the part of him that had always _wanted_ that, wanted to hold and to cherish, to be held in his turn. As he had wanted Zarabeth, as that wildest, deepest part of him had simply wanted to catch her and hold her and drink the delight she felt in his arms, so he wanted McCoy.

He wanted to press his fingertips against McCoy's. He wanted to catch him, to hold him, to be _permitted_ to hold him. That fragile, fractured thing, that wounded soul from which endless strength poured. Spock wanted to hold it, to have it, to be able to keep it. He wanted McCoy inside his arms, not grim and ready to be hurt, but warm, safe, sure in his trust of Spock. He wanted the courage of the man, the trust of the man, the _beauty_ of the man. He wanted McCoy to be his and his alone, someplace safe where no-one could ever interfere with them, where the only wounds they might bear were those they offered each other.

He wanted McCoy inside him, a thorn embedded so deep it could not be removed. He wanted the doctor body, mind and soul, no matter what pain it might cost. Perhaps he always had. Perhaps he had endured those endless barbs, that cruelty so blindly and innocently offered, for much that reason. McCoy had wounded him, would perhaps always wound him, but he believed that McCoy didn't _want_ to. A matter of trust and of hope and of daring, perhaps, but he did believe it. He had faith in the nature of the man, as much as McCoy must have had faith in him. And he ... cherished it. That nature, that faith. That man. He cherished him.

McCoy was pain and joy, was trust and was courage, and Spock wanted him. In truth, in the deepest parts of his heart, he wanted him. It would not be simple, wouldn't be painless, not as it would have been with Zarabeth, but he wanted him nonetheless. That was why the question had struck so deeply, why it had tangled against things he had not understood. Why it, of everything McCoy had ever said to him, had echoed so long and so loudly inside him. McCoy, for the first time, had asked him what he really wanted.

And the answer ... was McCoy.

It felt strange, to acknowledge that. Strange and near-painful, the reverberation of a bell caught between one's palms, its desperate ringing finally stilled as it was answered and caught and held. An echo that did not degrade, until it was _answered_. The knowledge of his desire was a trembling weight inside Spock. But perhaps ... perhaps not necessarily an unpleasant one.

Did he plan to act upon it? That was the question now, and it was not without risk to ask it. McCoy might not want him in return. There was a darkness in McCoy, too, and one that answered sometimes to Spock. There was some edge of fear, of pain, that Spock had seen and didn't yet understand, but McCoy might not want him because of it. McCoy loved him, he had no doubt of that, enough to die and to be killed for Spock's sake, but that didn't mean he would _want_ him. Why should it? Until this moment, until that question, Spock hadn't know he wanted McCoy. Why should McCoy want him in turn?

Perhaps that didn't matter, though. Or not to the attempt, at least. Perhaps the possible results did not and could not matter when it came to the question of acting. McCoy might not want him. He could endure that, as he had endured every other pain in his life, though it would be a pain. He knew the depth of his wanting now, and it was vast. It was a thorn he had held until he had scarred his unknowing hope around it and made it part of himself, and to lose it would _wound_. But for all that, he would survive its loss, as he had survived the loss of Zarabeth. That fear, he thought, should not be allowed to keep him from acting. It should not stop him from at least asking, and waiting to see what answer was offered in return.

If McCoy could find that courage, to speak out regardless of the cost, regardless of fear, Spock could certainly do no less. For no better reason than that, he could not leave the question unasked. 

And in this moment, he thought, that reason truly was the very least of what he had.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I keep coming back to this episode, but there's so many things about it that strike me. On McCoy's part, for that brave, defiant thing he does, I have _so much love_ for that thing, but on Spock's ... The way he acts with Zarabeth. He's regressing, he's primal, he doesn't even understand himself anymore, he's acting on instinct, and what does he do? He tells her she's beautiful, he takes her in his arms, he spins her around for the joy of it. Of being able to tell her that, to hold her and kiss her because of it, to have her enjoy him in response. That's what he wants. In the deepest, most primal part of him, that's all he wants. To be able to hold someone, to cherish and protect them, and have them love him back because of it. Good _gods_ , Spock. Break my heart, why don't you?


End file.
